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Sunday, 15 January 2012

Plant breeding and crop research may have their place in developing more productive edibles, but if you want to see some really big vegetables, what you need is a vegetable show.
Now, it's well known that these peculiarly British events can sometimes lead to 'poisonous rivalries, paranoia and sabotage' amongst participants, but there's no denying that they get results, whether it's by skulduggery, good husbandry, or top-secret fertiliser recipes of superphosphate and goat urine.
The problem is that these events are always held in the Summer; no use to growers of alternative tuber crops.

Never mind, I'll just hold my own show.

Here's my entry for the blue riband class: "Oca, (5 tubers of a single variety)"...

I'm the only entry in the class, so I should have a good chance of a 'First' on this one. Unless you can upstage me that is.

Feel free to invent another competition class. How about"Biggest Oca", or "Oca, artistic arrangement".
Send in your jpegs and I'll post them here. We don't need the RHS to have a good time!

Oh, and no paranoia, sabotage, Photoshopping, or image morphing please. That just wouldn't be British.

5/2/12. And here is another entry. Again grown in West London, this time from Michael Willcocks, who's entering the 'Oca, Medley' section. Very respectable.

6 comments:

Those are nice.In the Toads garden up in Denmark some pretty ones can be found...I'm not real sure how you people up in the cold zones are getting these fancy long season veggies b4 we do here in the deep south (USA).If the comments on the other site are to be believed, these ocas can get large.

Hi Ian, I'm wondering of all your oca varieties which has been your favorite for size and taste? also do you sell some of your crop? i will be traveling there from california and am interested in adding to the standard ones i grow here.